In some spacecraft, a corresponding payload may be required to maintain a line-of-sight (LOS) to a destination point for the payload to be fully operational (e.g., to maintain a communication link between a pair of communication terminals). Such a system may be employed in a vehicle residing in earth orbit, such as a geostationary earth orbit (GEO), but may also be employed in other applications as well. One particular type of communication system that typically relies on an LOS communication link is an optical (e.g., laser) communication system that employs a highly collimated laser beam with only a few microradians of divergence and approximately 30 centimeters (cm) in width. In some situations, maintaining LOS with such a beam may involve the use on the vehicle of one or more large mirrors approximately 45 cm wide for deflecting and steering the beam. Given the extensive distances involved in such communication, steering accuracy in the microradian and nanoradian range is generally required for such a beam.
Complicating the ability of a vehicle to steer a communication beam with such accuracy are the vibration and other dynamics of the vehicle itself, as minor physical disturbances may be sufficient to disrupt LOS. To mitigate these disturbances, the communication payload, including the mirror noted above, is often carried on a vibration-dampening platform to mechanically buffer the payload from the spacecraft. Typically, such platforms are custom-designed for each particular application, taking into account various characteristics of the vehicle (e.g., vibration profile) and the payload (e.g., mass, volume, communication link budget, and so on).